Affordable Care Act

For the time being, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is here to stay, and employers need to begin preparation for the 2017 filing deadline next year.

Simply put, ACA requires that Applicable Large Employers (ALE) with 50 or more full-time, or full-time equivalent, employees be subject to the employer-shared responsibility provision and the related IRS reporting requirements. Form 1095-C must be provided to employees so they can report relevant information during income tax submission time. But do your employees know what to do and how to prepare?

Here are three things HR Departments can do to engage employees:

Put together a written timeline for a communication strategy. Share with employees.

Open Enrollment is a great time to share information with employees. Providing information during OE meetings, or during the enrollment experience, will guarantee that employees will pay attention.

Host a company-wide ‘lunch-and-learn’ to explain the 1095-C form – what it looks like, when it will be available, and what employees are required to do.

Having engaged employees will ensure a smooth ACA reporting season. Employees will appreciate that ample time was taken to prepare them, and will allow HR departments to focus their resources on other important tasks.

As of July 28, 2017 the latest attempt at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act was defeated. This means that for now ACA is here to stay.

The required data to effectively manage and reportACA compliance can be intimidating, which is why utilizing an enterprise platform is key. With InfinityHR’s ACA module you won’t need to worry because your employee data is already housed within the system.

InfinityHR has created a comprehensive ACA Reporting Package that contains the information you need to comply with ACA regulations. Our reporting package includes the following services and features that can help you meet the ACA requirements.

ACA Module Features

Alerts

Ability to offer employees coverage at the click of a button

FTE/ALE forecasting

Personalized ACA profiles

E-filing

Easy access for employees

Multiple EIN reporting

1094/1095 B/C generation

For more information on how InfinityHR can help you stay compliant with ACA requirements, please contact us at sales@infinity-ss.com or call us at 1-866-TRY-HRMS.

InfinityHR is proud to announce a 100 percent on-time filing rate for client’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) e-filings. This includes a 31 percent increase in the number of EINs filing from tax year 2015 to tax year 2016. InfinityHR is poised to continue to help our customers stay compliant with our comprehensive ACA module for tax year 2017 now that ACA seems to be here to stay.

Although the Republican controlled White House, House of Representatives and Senate have been working to repeal or cripple the ACA, they have yet to be successful. On March 24, 2017, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said, “Obamacare is the law of the land. It will remain the law of the land until it is replaced. We will be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.” This was after the Republicans failed to get enough support for the American Health Care Act (AHCA), deciding to withdraw it from the floor prior to a vote.

What does all of this mean for employers? Although many expected there to be some sort of change to employer responsibilities as it relates to employee benefits, the reporting and/or the fines associated with the ACA, for now, stand.

The 2016 Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting deadlines are just around the corner, the ACA Recipient deadline is March 2, 2017.

Employers and human resources departments should start preparing as quickly as possible to meet the deadlines. It is important that employers understand their roles and responsibilities in order to stay compliant and avoid financial penalties.

Employers and human resources departments must not only be aware of the ACA’s basic rules, but they must also stay vigilant in understanding the constantly changing landscape.

Download the InfinityHR Guide: Five Things You Need to Know for 2016 ACA Reporting now!

As we dive into another ACA filing season, we want to make sure your systems are set up to produce accurate tax codes. In the recent months, we have created an additional check box located in the Benefit Management module that will allow you to confirm your medical plans have met Minimum Value (MV). For your convenience, we have created a short video that will walk you through the steps to ensure your medical plans have been set up properly, and address the importance of this field.

Please view the video prior to generating your 1095s to ensure accuracy, and let your designated Account Manager know if you have any questions.

With 2016 ACA (Affordable Care Act) reporting deadlines just around the corner, it is important that employers understand their roles and responsibilities in order to stay compliant and avoid financial penalties.

As health coverage expanded under the ACA, employers have experienced the increasing burden of reporting to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which uses a number of tax forms to ensure certain rules are met.

By staying current with ACA requirements and creating strong processes to ensure employee coverage and subsequent reporting, employers can maintain compliance, avoid financial penalties, all while making sure their employees are receiving proper health coverage.

Download our FREE guide to keep up to date with the ever-changing regulatory landscape and avoid financial penalties in 2017.

On November 18, the IRS extended the deadline to deliver ACA reporting forms to employees from January 31, 2017 to March 2, 2017. The extended deadline applies to furnishing to individuals the 2016 Form 1095-C and Form 1095-B.

Please note that the deadline for filing Forms 1094 and 1095 with the IRS has not changed. The deadline to file these forms by mail is February 28, 2017. Employers filing electronically must do so by March 31, 2017.

Additionally, the IRS extended “good faith transition relief” for another year. The IRS initially indicated this good faith compliance standard would no longer be available for 2016. However, the IRS has extended the good faith standard to the 2016 filing cycle as well. This relief applies to missing and inaccurate information required on the forms, but not to forms that are not filed timely.

Tax Year 2015 may have been an easy and smooth process for some. For others, there may have been some challenges along the way. If you are looking for an experienced and reliable Affordable Care Act (ACA) partner, turn to InfinityHR for all of your compliance, reporting and filing needs. Through integrated functionality within our HRIS application, InfinityHR is ready to help you simplify your Affordable Care Act reporting requirements.

InfinityHR has a comprehensive ACA Reporting Package that contains the information you need to comply with ACA regulations.

Our reporting package includes the following services and features that can help you meet the ACA requirements:

Alerts

Ability to offer employees coverage at the click of a button

FTE/ALE forecasting

Personalized ACA profiles

E-Filing

Easy access for employees

Multiple EIN reporting

1094/1095 B/C generation

ACA SupportInfinityHR is certified by the National Association Health Underwriters as an expert in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). We’ll help you better understand the ACA reporting requirements and guide you through the process of filing your forms to the IRS and sending copies to your employees.

For more information on how InfinityHR can help you stay compliant with ACA requirements, please contact us – sales@infinity-ss.com or call us at 1-866-TRY-HRMS.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is evolving, and has turned out to be the perfect storm of data management chaos with a hint of penalty induced nightmares for some companies. We have you covered with tips and insight on how to prevent those pesky errors and how to have confidence in your ACA compliance strategy. We’re doing a two-part blog with our top five recommendations to stay ahead of Tax Year 2016 reporting.

Tax Year 2015 (TY15) has provided us an invaluable experience on how we can prepare for TY16. Here are our first three recommendations to stay ahead of the curve.

Know your target audience
The federal government, our audience, has mandated adherence to a cash-penalty-filled mandate with pinhole tight guidelines. In order to protect ourselves, we must understand what our audience wants. The IRS expects companies to follow the law with clean, accurate data that proves compliance. The goal here isn’t necessarily to become an ACA master, but it is to ensure the long-term compliance for businesses by complying with the mandate and transmitting our data on time and complete.

It’s all in the detail
TY15 filing has provided us some insight on the AIR (Affordable Care Act Information Return) system the IRS uses for the transmission and acknowledgement of 1095 and 1094 data. Not shocking, the IRS is looking for very specific and granular data that can leave employers unprepared for tax season. Here are a few of the data points we need to be spot on to ensure we are Accepted by the IRS: